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Researchers believe they have identified the prime driver for a startling rise in the number of people who think the Earth is flat: Google’s video-sharing site, YouTube.
Their suspicion was raised when they attended the world’s largest gatherings of Flat Earthers at the movement’s annual conference in Rayleigh, North Carolina, in 2017, and then in Denver, Colorado, last year.
Interviews with 30 attendees revealed a pattern in the stories people told about how they came to be convinced that the Earth was not a large round rock spinning through space but a large flat disc doing much the same thing.
Of the 30, all but one said they had not considered the Earth to be flat two years ago but changed their minds after watching videos promoting conspiracy theories on YouTube. “The only person who didn’t say this was there with his daughter and his son-in-law and they had seen it on YouTube and told him about it,” said Asheley Landrum, who led the research at Texas Tech University.
[...] Some said they watched the videos only in order to debunk them but soon found themselves won over by the material.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 19 2019, @06:20AM (9 children)
Believing in Flat Earth has not so much to do with the belief that Earth does not curve, as it has to do with rejection of Technocracy. Once you realize this, it makes rational sense. Public Education has too long focused on metrics due to political pressure, which results in curriculumn where you are tought "2+2 = 4 because someone smarter than you figured it out, and you are going to take our word for it, and pass this fucking test." Facing that kind of moronic browbeating for 12+ years will instill in people a subtle desire to "fuck you" to the system.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday February 19 2019, @01:43PM
I sure it's something like that. But what's the point of rejecting Technocracy by embracing outright ignorance? Knowing things wasn't the problem in the first place, after all.
(Score: 3, Funny) by urza9814 on Tuesday February 19 2019, @03:42PM
I first heard of the whole flat earth theory in my highschool physics class. The teacher would pick arguments from various flat earth websites and throw those at us instead of regular lessons, and we'd try to figure out why it was bullshit. :)
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday February 19 2019, @06:42PM (1 child)
2+2 = 4 because someone smarter than you figured it out
Placing two couples of oranges next to each other and counting them and looking at pictures of the earth are "browbeating" now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 19 2019, @07:21PM
Right, 2 + 2 is 4 is simple to demonstrate.
That said, the words 2 and 4 are arbitrary (as is the basis of 10), but addition is simple to demonstrate, once you have figured out counting (which is just adding 1 repeatedly).
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Tuesday February 19 2019, @07:01PM
Ah yes, "fuck you" because "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge!"
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday February 19 2019, @07:13PM (2 children)
"Because public ed wasn't sufficiently sensitive to our feelings when teaching us obvious truths, we're going to believe something dumb." I suspect the Flat Earthers would have better luck with critical thinking. That way they could both criticize the Technocracy and get some respect from the rest of us.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday February 19 2019, @10:38PM (1 child)
It's not feelings, it's the lack of critical thinking skills. That I do believe has been engendered by public/private education for decades now. Standardized testing and politics made test scores more important than anything else, and what did we get? A bunch of multiple choice bullshit which I railed against in high school. Part of the reasons I had such trouble in school was I hated the boring shit of having some knowledge shoved down my throat in the form of doing it over and over again, without having any conversation as to the "why". Perform several hundred calculations and write out the answers, but let's never talk about WHY the math acts the way it does. Same with history. I could ace a test as fast as my pencil could move, but remembered nothing about that course even 2 or 3 years later. That was because nothing was discussed, there was no critical thinking exercises to figure out why the events in history happened the way they did. All that mattered was getting the right pencil mark in A, B, C, or D. Even that was beyond stupid, because anybody with a brain capable of critical thinking would see that A & B were wildly off the mark, C was plausible in a way, and that left the right answer D. So it wasn't even that hard. The tests I appreciated the most were the question and answer type tests that actually asked me to explain my answer and why it was correct, and not just that it was correct. Those tests were rare.
I think the lack of critical thinking skills in public schools, and the emphasis on the correct answer in multiple choice is the cause for some of this. So removing the egotistical part of the GPs argument, it has some merit. Shit you learned just by multiple choice has far less lasting effect than a discussion with an intelligent teacher that walks you through the arguments, uses the words "critical thinking", and attempts to actually teach you something. Otherwise, I can kind of see their attitude, "They never explained anything, they just told me what was correct, and I had to pass tests that asked for that correct answer. Why is the Earth not flat? They were obviously afraid and controlled and couldn't talk about it".
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday February 20 2019, @03:05AM
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday February 20 2019, @06:08AM
Interesting theory, but judging from the flat-earthers with whom I've had ...um, debates of faith... not really the case. The ones I've encountered come in two types:
1) Outright trolls who are good enough at it to be convincing, and perhaps enjoy the challenge.
2) Schizophrenics using yet another conspiracy theory ("they" are lying to you to hide the truth about the Earth) as their way of understanding an apparently-chaotic world. They invariably espouse a variety of other conspiracy theories, and are not at all bothered by apparent contradictions, because you're just gullible and wrong.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.